A MAN OF THE NATION. 41 



affairs of France. Thus we shall see, under the name of 

 Michaux, amidst the fellow labourers of our academician, 

 the celebrated Da^on, who had emigrated, but returned 

 to his country. Still, what occasion is there to drag our 

 audience through individual instances, when a general 

 reflection will lead to the same result ? The Convention 

 was the arena where the chiefs of the factions that 

 divided the country, went to combat ; yet it was in the 

 Clubs that they created those adherents, and obtained 

 that bodily strength, whose action, and even whose mere 

 presence, often sufficed to annul the effects of the most 

 eloquent discourses. If the Convention saw the thunder 

 cloud burst, it was outside its walls that it began to 

 threaten, that it swelled, that it acquired an irresistible 

 power. Men could not then acquire political influence 

 without attending daily either at the Jacobins or at the 

 Cordeliers, and mixing and taking part in all their de 

 bates : well, Gentlemen, Carnot did not belong to any 

 of those associations ; never did a word of his echo in 

 those Clubs. In those troublous times, Carnot made 

 himself exclusively a man of the nation. 



The character was high, but not without danger. 

 Robespierre especially was jealous of him, and ex 

 claimed in one of his harangues : &quot; To have taken the 

 command of all the military operations, is decidedly an 

 act of egotism ; obstinately refusing to take any part in 

 the affairs of internal police, is contriving means of ac 

 commodation with the enemies of the country.&quot; He 

 said to Cambon on another occasion : &quot; I am in despair 

 at not comprehending anything of the intersection of 

 lines and tints, that I see on those maps. Ah ! if I had 

 studied the military art in my youth, I should not now 

 be obliged, whenever our armies are treated of, to sub- 



